


Through the Mirror of Fire

by Esteliel



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien, The Silmarillion - Tolkien
Genre: Challenge: My Slashy Valentine 2010, M/M, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-10
Updated: 2010-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-08 20:25:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/pseuds/Esteliel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Legolas' fate seems to be settled when he is sold as a slave to the Tarb of Tûl Póac, but then he hears a song that promises rain in the desert...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through the Mirror of Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Ignoblebard for the 2010 My Slashy Valentine Exchange
> 
> All Haradaic words and places come from the MERP module on Greater Harad and are thus not 'true' Tolkien canon.
> 
> Beta help by Spiced_Wine, thank you so much! :)

The Dune Sea. That was all Legolas truly remembered of the journey. Great, rolling waves of dry sand that lurched and rose and fell all around him, threatening to swallow him so that he would sometimes cry out in fear, but there was no one who heard him, no one who saw him, and then at night there would be hands on him, a mouth pressed to his and sweet, sweet smoke filling his lungs, filling his mind until he wept at the dreams of home.  


~~~

No one spoke his language. Not anymore. Not since his captors had sold him like a prize cow, soon after they had crossed the Harnen. And even before, it had been of no use to speak. Their fists had taught him that, and the drugged wine they forced into him when he had proved too resilient to their brutality.

There were moments of lucidity. Yet there were chains on his hands and feet, so he could not run, even though he tried. Another beating followed, and once they had seen how much faster the weals healed on his fair skin, they did not hold back in their punishments. Still he would have tried to escape again and again had they not forced him to ingest their poisons in the food they fed him, the wine they gave him, the smoke they breathed into his mouth until his lips were slack and unresisting even when their hands moved all over him like knives cutting into his skin...  


~~~

He should not have left Laketown, he thought in a rare lucid moment, swaying on the back of an ugly animal while strange, uncaring stars wheeled above him. But the tales told there had been so tempting... A troupe out of the far south in a town just three days' rides to the east, with beasts so fantastic that the young cobbler's apprentice had stammered when he described the large, gray-skinned oliphaunt, the big, golden-skinned cat which was as strong as three men, and a hairy animal that looked like a child, with dexterous hands and feet and eyes full of human emotion...

It was child-like curiosity that had made Legolas abandon all caution and ride east with his companion. The animals were indeed all the apprentice had promised, yet the troupe that was showing them off for coin did not come from far-away Harad. Hard-faced men from Rhûn, who might have bought the animals in Khand, or maybe suddenly found themselves in possession of the fantastical beast when they had killed the original owners in the hope for hidden treasures...

And just such an hidden treasure Legolas had proved to be for them. Legolas' head hurt as he looked up at the strange stars, aching for the familiar beauty of Menelvagor.  


~~~

Legolas woke without a splitting headache or the awful, so familiar sticky spiderweb the sweet smoke left in his mind. He did not know when that had happened for the last time. Months... or possibly years, he thought when he stared out through scrolled lattice-work at a garden lush with colors and green despite the heat. The air was heavy with the scent of jasmine, and he stood, trembling with disbelief when he realized that his hands and feet were not bound. Day after day, night after night on the swaying backs of the ungainly animals with their knobby legs and long necks... How long had it truly been? He wanted to cry when he thought that after journeying so long, so far, his father would never know what had happened to him. Weeks alone they had spent in the Dune Sea, and that was an environment so devoid of life, so stark, so deadly that not even his father's best trackers would survive more than a day in it.

"Are you awake at last? Come!" a voice called him from outside, and to be addressed in heavily accented Quenya was surprise enough that Legolas tried to stand. He hesitated, confused for a moment when the thin sheet of silk that slipped from his body revealed that he was naked underneath. But the lure of the garden, of that voice calling him in the ancient tongue was too strong to resist, and so he slowly went outside, blinking when he drew aside the curtain that shielded his room from the brightness of the sun.

The sky was a relentless blue without a single cloud in sight, and Anor shone down with such force that Legolas knew his skin would burn if he should step out of the shade. On the journey, he had been wrapped from head to toe with little more than a slit to allow him to see, on the rare occasion when he was lucid enough to not swim in the murky dreams of drugged wine.

Yet despite the heat, everything in this small garden surrounded by high walls was green and alive - there was even the musical trickle of a fountain, and strange, huge trees with impossible long and broad leaves that shaded the garden and the many flowers that perfumed the air.

"Come, sir elf. Is this not a delight, even for as exotic a creature as you?" the voice asked, and when Legolas turned, he found himself staring at a man dressed in flowing, rich robes, his hair dark and curly. Legolas flinched despite himself when the man's eyes studied his unclad body with obvious enjoyment, and slowly memories resurfaced...

_Dragged into a room full of people, no one who understood his language, no one who spoke the Westron of the men of Laketown, of Gondor, which his father had made him learn... The cruel eyes of the man who had breathed the sweet, foul smoke into his mouth night after night and was now pulling the clothes from his body, presenting him naked to the crowd who made sounds of surprise and delight..._

...a hand gripping his chin, turning his head this way and that, another hand sliding all over his body with the ease of a man testing the muscles of a horse he was about to buy... sliding even between his legs to fondle him, and when he tried to fight free, when he begged in a broken voice, a kind word to calm him and the jingle of golden coins poured into the hand of the man who held him.

There had been music, too... music which he seemed to hear even now, notes as clear as spring water, a voice beautiful and sad and strong, waking something in him, a nameless yearning for home, and he dreamed of flight, of running from his enemies, walking though the Dune Sea until he came to a place of green, of water and the miracle of life amid the endless sand like a vision sent by one of the Valar...

He stiffened then. Impossible. Not here deep in the Haradwaith, months from his people... He was alone here, and he would die alone; there was no rescue for him, and flight would but mean a lonely death of thirst in the merciless heat among the dunes. And yet the song called to him, and he thought of his father, of his father's father who rode into battle well aware that it would mean his death, and preferring that to a life in the shadow of the Dark Lord's power.

The man smiled at him. "Are you surprised? I know that they think us barbarians in Gondor, but truly, we hold learning in high esteem. When Gondor ruled us still, your ancient language was the language of law - now the kings of the north are long gone, but we keep the knowledge still, for only a foolish man would not be prepared should the power of Gondor grow again. Yet it will not happen in my lifetime, and so my sons too shall learn this language of yours."

Then the man bowed with a charming smile, meant to set him at ease but Legolas felt only more unsettled. "Forgive me, I did not introduce myself. I am Umar, Tarb of Tûl Póac - your master for now. Though I regret that I did not buy you as an exotic delight for my harem. Yet as much as I regret that fact, you shall make such a gift for the Emperor that they will talk of it even in a thousand years. He has a taste for beautiful things; you will be a great delight to him. In a week, we shall ride south to his great city - a marvel, which I hope you will find as well when you behold it with your own eyes."

Legolas took in the walled garden, the tell-tale gleam of a spear's tip high up on the wall. Guarded, then - but he could not find a sign that there was more than one guard. It seemed a private place, with no windows overlooking the garden, and only a few doors opening into it, so that Legolas wondered if this was perhaps a part of the harem for which Umar had not bought him.

Reluctantly, he went closer, his steps slow and still a little insecure from the remnant of their poisons in his blood. The months of journeying bound on top of an animal had left him as weak, as unthreatening as a new-born kitten, and he was naked, unarmed. There was nothing he could do, and Umar knew it.

"Like the Emperor, I as well value beauty over everything else," he said, his voice husky as he reached out to slide a beringed hand down the smooth chest. "What a prize for him you will make - my name will be legend alongside yours, for bringing you to him. And yet, it almost seems as if whatever position he will award me can never make up for the pleasures I will lose out on..."

"Let me go," Legolas said helplessly. "If it is riches you want, jewels, gold, even mithril - my father is a king, he would give you all the treasures of his coffers if you would but return me to his realm."

"That is tempting," Umar mused, "for a supply of mithril would be almost as welcome as an elf-slave to the Emperor. But he expects me soon, and I cannot appear empty-handed before him when I have promised him the greatest treasure he has ever seen. I am sorry, for you are very lovely, but he will treat you well - you are too rare and precious a creature for him to see die."

"Please," Legolas breathed, his eyes filling with tears, wide and lovely as they gleamed a blue as bright as the desert sky overhead, "please, I will do whatever you want if you let me go..."

The Tarb's hand strayed further down his body, slowly closing around his limp shaft, the pad of his thumb gently caressing the crown as if to see whether Legolas would rouse to his touch, and when Legolas gasped softly and closed his eyes, trembling as if his legs refused to carry him at the sensation, Umar fisted a handful of the gleaming hair to pull Legolas into a hungry kiss.

Legolas whimpered softly, and then the Tarb groaned, slowly going to his knees while Legolas followed, careful to keep the knife in the man's heart out of the sight of the guard in his turret on the wall.  


~~~

The Mirror of Fire, they called this desert to the south of the Dune Sea, and though Legolas knew it not, it was also what he called it in his heart. Long ago the full force of Anor's fire had scorched the baked sand, and it mirrored back the heat into the sky until the very air seemed to boil, wavering in front of Legolas as he wearily trudged across the sand.

He had killed a man for the first time.

He had killed before, orcs and spiders and wolves in a fight, deer or boar when he went hunting, but that was different. This man had been no dark creature whose mind was enslaved to the Dark Lord. The Tarb had been a man, as good, as bad as any man, and even though Legolas knew that he had taken what was the last chance left to him, he still felt unsettled by the memory of what he had done.

He had taken a man's life, and that life had been one which, unlike that of the orcs, still held the possibility to turn to the good. Indeed, from what he had seen of this strange, hostile country, the Tarb's actions would not seem evil to the people here - and yet, to own a person like chattel was inconceivable, and Legolas shuddered when he thought of how one day earlier, he had been brought before the Tarb, how he had been touched...

He trembled violently, recalling other touches. Dimly, through the mist of his memories he thought that he remembered the Tarb turning from him to fondle a slave boy, a pretty youth with beckoning eyes and a slender, sinful body twisting gracefully in a dance. He had been naked but for his jewelry and chains of gleaming coins, and while the length of his manhood was intact, the testes beneath were missing.

Legolas felt sick at the memory at what had been done to him. No, the Tarb might have appeared charming, but he had been the source of misery for many a slave. Like the men before him, the Tarb would have chained him, drugged him, touched him and then sold him to his Emperor in exchange for his favor.

Had he deserved death? Legolas could not say, and the question weighed heavy on his mind while he stumbled slowly through the desert, clad from head to toe in the stolen garments of the guard whom he had been forced to kill as well. Yet that he did not rue. He had surprised him, but they had met face to face, weapons in hand, and despite the weakness of the long, long journey, Legolas had still been so much faster that there had been a look of surprise on the guard's face when he joined his Tarb in death.

Now Legolas had clothes fit for travel through the desert, and he had the water skins and dried dates the guard had kept in his small turret. Yet even so, the Mirror of Fire was deadly, and he did not think that he would survive more than one day. Why he had walked out of Tûl Póac without another thought to supplies, horses or the ungainly, long-legged beasts of the desert, he could not say, save that he had thought to hear the music again, soft notes falling like rain in the desert, sweet as dew in the morning, guiding, tempting with that cold clearness of a winter morn far in the north, his father's pines tall and majestic against a backdrop of snow.

_The high, clear sound when you step into an ice-covered puddle; snowflakes landing on your hands, your shoulders, your upturned face; a small brook swelling with snowmelt; stepping into a shady, leaf-covered pool with the great shadow of an old carp going on his way beneath you..._

He wanted to sing, keeping the visions with him as long as possible while he went to what would be his death here in the Mirror of Fire, but his mouth was too scorched to produce sound. He shook his last water-skin, squeezed the last, precious drops onto his tongue, and it was then that he tasted it.

Water.

Water in the air. The scent of water; the scent of green, of flowers, animals; and there before his disbelieving eyes the oasis rose out of the glimmering heat, and with it came the song.  


~~~

When he woke, the song rose around him with the force of a river breaking a dam. A jug of clear, sweet water stood beside him, and he drank gratefully, listening to the music, hearing the swell of the ocean; great waves in a storm threatening to swallow a ship; small waves lapping against the shore; the lonely cries of birds wheeling overhead; a regret that would not end poured into song; a grief so vast and yet so small that it meant no more than a raindrop falling into the ocean.

"I know who you are," he said, and was glad that his voice was no longer that of a ghost. This was no dream. He had not died, though he should have. Instead he had been found by the most improbable person of all.

The man did not answer him, but instead continued to play, a lament for all that was lost, proud and unassailable in his grief as all his people were said to have been. Legolas sighed and rested his head on the soft cushion once more, his mouth curving into a smile as he looked at him, strands of dark hair tearing free from the flowing garment that covered him head to toe.

"You attacked my father's home," he said almost dreamily, as if that were the proper way to address one who had rescued him from certain death in a place where he was certain that none of their people had gone before. Yet the song talked of death, of the shedding of innocent blood, so that he sighed in almost impatience. He had not died, he lived! "Would that you played something more cheerful," he murmured, and then slept.  


~~~

"Why are you here, so far from the ocean?" he asked a day later, as cheerful and curious as a child, now that there was water and food and rest and oh, the glorious freedom from their mind-numbing poisons!

"They say that you still lament at the shore..."

"Would that I did, for I would find more peace there than I have in your company!" Maglor said, his words impatient though his mouth curved into a reluctant smile. "But certainly you will agree that after a thousand years, even the ocean can become tiresome. Mayhap I wanted to see what else there was than waves and gulls and reeds."

"Did one of the Valar send you to save me? Did Lord Ulmo?" Legolas asked with the awed earnestness of a child.

"Do you think that you have a special fate, that heroes out of legends have been sent after you?" Maglor gently mocked. "I am but a man, and I did not come for you. I wander, for I have not yet found a place where I can find rest. A singer travels easily, especially in these parts where they honor bards, though unlike you, I have the good sense to keep my face covered. I have little interest in becoming the pleasure slave of a local Tarb."

"Contrary to you, _I_," Legolas informed him loftily, "was to become the pleasure slave of the Emperor in the south," and then they both laughed until Legolas had to weep, for he had not laughed since he left his father's lands so many months ago.  


~~~

"Play again," Legolas said, his head canted up arrogantly. They had crossed the Mirror of Fire with the long-legged _devevi_ whom Legolas still could not bring himself to like, even though Maglor had told him that they need not drink for two weeks, once they had been allowed to drink their fill before a journey, and so were the only means by which they could hope to cross the desert and live.

"I am not a hired bard to do your bidding!" Maglor's eyes flashed and Legolas smiled, unperturbed.

"Play," he said again, and though Maglor cast his eyes up to the star-filled sky, he laid his hands on the harp that traveled with him on his _deve_'s back during the day. Legolas looked up at the stars, watched them transformed by the silver notes, dancing and wheeling above him in familiar patterns once more until he wept with longing.  


~~~

They traveled at night by the light of the stars; they rested during the day next to their _devevi_. After more than a week, they reached another small oasis where they could water their animals and rest for a day, indulging on ripe, sweet dates that grew in thick clusters high up on the palm trees Legolas learned to scale.

That night, they did not ride on but rested, sharing a little of the wine Maglor had brought a small supply of, and when Maglor sang again later, Legolas' voice rose to entwine with his, clear and young where Maglor's notes were brittle with weary resignation. Maglor stared at him when the song ended, the stars reflected in his eyes, his hair black as the night, and Legolas wanted to touch him and run from him at the same time.

"I do not know your father," Maglor said, the sensual mouth firm with what could be anger or insecurity. Legolas smiled.

"He was of Doriath."

Maglor turned away from him then and laid down on his pallet, pulling up his blanket, for when the fire of Anor was gone, the nights were freezing cold on the Mirror. Legolas' smile widened at the reaction.

Sometimes it felt like a dream; sometimes Maglor felt like a ghost. None of this could be real, and yet he could affect Maglor in such a way, so he knew that it was no dream.

He watched him for a long time, wondering if he slept; yet when at last he got up to lay down at his side, Maglor turned again, his silver eyes filled with awareness and a question. Brash with determination, Legolas kissed him, and after a moment Maglor's mouth became soft and yielding. He was sweet like the dates, bitter like the _kafe_ Maglor had brewed from what he said were ground beans, and Legolas imagined he could taste a hint of the ocean in him too, salt water and wind and the lonely cry of gulls. Maglor raised a hesitant hand to rest it against his cheek, and all of a sudden Legolas tasted the familiar smoke with its sickening sweetness, felt the hands on him which he just could not shake off, and he drew back with a stifled groan of terror, eyes wild and body shaking like a spooked horse.

Maglor lay passively beneath him, watching him with those large, luminous eyes. At last Legolas swallowed and answered with another kiss born from anger and frustration. He scrabbled at the voluminous garments Maglor wore, then gave up when he did not succeed, biting at Maglor's full lips while he thrust against him fully clothed. Maglor too was hardening beneath him, and for one moment Legolas once again felt the pressure of tears. He would not cry again, not now! and then it all was just _too much_ and he gasped, shuddering with intense pleasure while the heat of his release soaked into the loose robe he still wore. He could feel that Maglor had not found release, could feel him hard and large against his thigh, but Maglor lay completely motionless, as if he were afraid that any movement might jar Legolas back into his earlier panic.

Legolas sighed, gradually relaxing against Maglor's chest, and after a moment, Maglor's arms rose hesitantly to embrace him. Above them, Ithil began her nightly journey across the sky, and when Legolas at last slipped into reverie, he found himself walking through Maglor's song with the singer at his side, green and golden leaves a familiar, long-missed canopy above them.

\---------  
deve, devevi – camel, camels [Haradaic]  
kafe – coffee [Haradaic]  
\--------- 


End file.
